Dear Theresa,
I am astonished as to why you would be “outraged” by Cadbury’s and the National Trust dropping the word “Easter” from its annual egg hunt.
As a vicar’s daughter, I would have thought, you of all people, would know that ‘Easter’ was appropriated by Christians from the Anglo-Saxon pagan festival of ‘Eostre’, sometimes known as ‘Ostara’.
Eostre is the German Goddess of fertility and is worshipped and celebrated at the time of the Spring Equinox to symbolise rebirth (of mother nature).Though, it is easy to see why Christians would steal this festival to mark the ressurection of Jesus Christ. (As they did with the Winter Solstice and Jesus’ birth.)
Of course, every God and Goddess needs a pet. Odin had a pair of ravens called Huginn and Muninn. Eostre was no different. She had a wittle, cutesy-wutesy bunny wabbit.
But what about all the chocloate eggs I hear you bleat? What have they got to do with Jesus?
Absolutely nothing. Again, they are Eostre’s symbol of fertility and rebirth.
So, Theresa, next time you get the hump about a chocolate company ditching an irrelevant ‘Christian’ term from its promotion, I suggest you concentrate on more important things like selling Weapons of Mass Destruction to brutal dictatorships.
David Milligan-Croft
Thereisnocavalry 